CEO of new delivery service insults Seattle customer who then posts the email

The email thread between Postmates CEO Bastian Lehmann and one of his employees was accidentally forwarded to a customer who had complained about recent service. You know what happens next. It went viral after the customer, Erin Boudreau, posted it on her Twitter page. (Screen grab from Twitter.com/Erin_Boudreau)

Have you heard of Postmates? Most people hadn’t until the CEO responded to a Seattle customer’s complaint with a couple of choice words – the first one starts with the letter “f” and the second one is off.

Postmates says its a “revolutionary same day urban logistics and delivery platform.” The company is basically a step above bike messengers. Their website says they enable “anyone to ship any product within a city in under one hour.” They’re in San Francisco, New York and Seattle.

They say they’ll deliver anything legal within an hour. Feeling like a Dick’s burger for lunch, but don’t want to drive to get one. They’ll pick it up and deliver. Need something from an office supply store? They’ll get that too. You get the idea.

The CEO apparently doesn’t get the idea behind customer service.

The email thread between Postmates CEO Bastian Lehmann and one of his employees was accidentally forwarded to a customer who had complained about recent service.

Lehmann tells her to “f-off” except he uses the full phrase in a sentence – as in “Someone also please tell her to f-off.”

He has since apologized to her through social media and email, and through a blog post on his company’s website:

I sent a private e-mail to our Customer Service team in response to a customer complaint regarding her past orders and restaurant profile. My e-mail, which outlined how to resolve the customer issue, contained a bad joke which was very poor in taste. Subsequently, the bad joke was sent to the customer. What I said was a major lapse in judgement on my part. I deeply regret this.

I immediately reached out to the customer and offered my full and sincere apology. I would like to extend that same apology to all of our customers and Customer Service team. There is no excuse for this.

At Postmates we love and value our world-class Customer Service. We take great pride in our Customer Service team. However, with my comment I have not lived up to our own standards and also damaged my team’s reputation.

I cannot find the words to describe how much I value our customers and how deeply I care about them being happy. There is no excuse for this type of conduct.

I take full responsibility for my actions. I am sincerely sorry.

Bastian Lehmann

You already know the moral of the story – don’t insult customers through social media or email because it could “accidentally” get out there, dent a company’s reputation, and force the CEO to apologize.